The new season of West Dayton Stories launches in January. Here is a sneak peek of one episode:
When we remember a place, we conjure up the people, the sounds, and the buildings.
This season of West Dayton Stories features stories about the DeSoto Bass apartments, the city’s oldest and largest public housing complex.
The stories from this place are tender and troubled, and reveal some of the history of Dayton’s African American West Side.
For this season's first episode, we meet Vickie Martin and her son, Ernest Stockton. Vickie resided at Apt. 805 in DeSoto Bass for 18 years, and Ernest spent some of his childhood there.
After applying for different housing and spending ten years on a waiting list, Vickie said she was finally able to give Ernest a better life, and more educational opportunities, by moving to the suburb of Miamisburg. But the mother and son missed the sense of community they had at DeSoto Bass.
Conversation highlights:
The lasting sense of community at DeSoto Bass
Vickie Martin: I was there for 18 years and some of them are still my family—so it's real love. We could go without seeing each other for like ten, twenty years and when we see each other it's like we saw each other yesterday.
Ernest Stockton: I bonded with so many young Black men that were like myself. We were tight knit. Even though we were surrounded by poverty, it wasn't recognized. I didn't recognize it as that as a child. It just felt like we were all there and we made the best out of what we had.
The people at the store knew who your parents were. The people at the bus stop knew who your parents were. So it was hard to get into trouble because, you know, it always got back to your mother [laughs].
And yes, there were shootings and stabbings and there was violence to the point where it actually became the norm for me.
But when my mother moved us out, I would catch the bus to come back to DeSoto Bass on the weekends because I felt comfortable there.
How Ernest spent his days as a child living at DeSoto Bass
Ernest: The Boys & Girls Club was huge. People would come from other neighborhoods—Westwood, Five Oaks—to hang out with people from DeSoto Bass at the Rec Center.
The park there actually had mulch, not just dirt and grass. It had swings that moved and things like that.
We also had to create our own fun. We were climbing trees and eating the berries and playing hide and go seek.
Storefronts near DeSoto Bass
Vickie: Thelma's Market on Danner. She was wonderful. If you were hungry, she helped.
Then there was Ren's Supermarket, also on Danner on the other end. They really cared.
Ernest: It was so localized and neat because I wasn't even old enough to buy cigarettes, and I don't mean to put you out there like that, Mom [laughs], but if they knew who your mother was it was like, 'here you go, take you straight to your mom.' That was it.
How growing up at DeSoto Bass shaped Ernest's identity
Ernest: It was a badge of honor at one point in the negative light to say you were from DeSoto Bass because they knew, 'okay, you come from troubled homes and dysfunction and violence.'
So we would wear that.
But I realized this is temporary. This doesn't have to be your end-all be-all. Because when you're inside, it's hard to feel anything other than that because it's like, this is it.
West Dayton Stories is produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices and is supported by CityWide Development Corporation.
